Freedom from Torture is the Winner of the Overall Award for Excellence and the top prize for Campaigns and Advocacy
at the 2023 Charity Awards.
We have an exciting opportunity for a Scotland-based Legal Advisor to join our Legal Advice and Welfare Service.
Would you like to join our award-winning organisation?
About the role
Legal Advisers at Freedom from Torture deliver expert, detailed, advice to treatment clients and their clinicians on
all areas of asylum and immigration law. There is a particular focus on complex, appeals rights exhausted cases
where there is a risk of detention, and on supporting clients who are unrepresented. Legal Advisors review
evidence produced by clinicians for use in clients’ asylum and immigration cases, ensuring that it complies with
the standards required of a professional witness. Legal Advisors are also responsible for delivering internal
and external training on a range of legal issues affecting torture survivors within the immigration and asylum
system in the UK.
We are seeking to recruit a Legal Advisor for our Glasgow centre, who is a Scottish qualified legal professional with
experience of advising on immigration and asylum matters within the Scottish legal system, and who could attend
our Glasgow centre at least once every fortnight.
About you
You will be a legal professional qualified to practice in Scotland, with expertise in immigration and asylum law,
particularly in relation to the legal protections available to survivors of torture. You will have experience of
advising and representing clients in the Tribunals and Courts, including in judicial review claims. You will be
able to communicate effectively and sensitively with people who have experienced trauma, and will be able to
build professional relationships with a variety of colleagues both internally and externally. You will share our
commitment to working with and empowering people who have experienced torture.
In return, we offer a competitive package, with a generous 30-day annual leave entitlement, and 6% employer pension
contribution (minimum 1% employee contribution).
Freedom from Torture is committed to showing the salary for all advertised roles and not negotiating salaries for
roles, in light of evidence that this contributes to structural inequality.
Our policy is that all appointments will be at the start of the salary range but successful candidates will have the
opportunity to move up the scale over time. The progression up the salary range is reviewed on an annual basis
and subject to affordability. For this role, the salary range is £47,655 - £55,279 pro rata per annum.
View the Job Description and Person Specification
Please note a CV and a cover letter addressing the job description and person specification of the role are mandatory
to be considered for the position.
Freedom from Torture is dedicated to healing and protecting people who have survived torture. We provide therapies to
improve physical and mental health, we medically document torture, and we provide legal and welfare help. We
expose torture globally, we fight to hold torturing states to account and we campaign for fairer treatment of
torture survivors in the UK.
We campaign for national and global change, using evidence from our services and survivor voices to protect and
promote survivors' rights and hold torturing states to account. We are proud to play a significant role in
the global anti-torture movement. Survivors, active and empowered, are at the centre of all of our work.
Freedom from Torture is committed to its responsibilities under safeguarding, and expects all staff and volunteers to
share this commitment. This post is subject to a satisfactory enhanced DBS disclosure, as well as a need for
full employment history and up to date employment references.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary
for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to
check for any previous criminal convictions.